The Threefold Order of the Body Social - Study Series II

Schmidt Number: S-4213

On-line since: 31st December, 2012

I.

Address given by Dr. Steinerat a Social
Study Evening in Stuttgart15th September, 1920.

(Influence of the human will upon the
course of economic life.Emancipation of the money-market
from the goods-market.Returns on production or
needs of consumption aseconomic starting points. Necessary
and unnecessary work.Historic examples.)

L a d i e s a n d G e n t l e m e n

If things
really went on in political life — or in public life
generally — in the way imagined by many people at the
present day, one could only give up all hope of any personal
action, any direct human intervention, being able to effect
anything towards the betterment of social conditions. More
particularly, one cannot but remember that there are quite a
number of people at the present day, who are under the idea,
that the phases of economic life run their course almost like
natural phaenomena: that after one set of economic
occurrences has played itself out, another set of occurrences
will follow, with an inevitability of cause and effect in
every way comparable to the inevitability with which a
substance, possessing certain properties, will catch fire
when brought together in a certain way with another
substance. And in the same way many people have the idea in
economic life, that when some phase like a ‘favorable
business conjuncture’ has been evolved for a while,
that then this ‘favorable business conjuncture’
will of itself inevitably evolve a crisis, and that this will
then be succeeded for a while by a bad run of business and a
declining phase of economic conditions; until again a sort of
recovery sets in, and a rise takes place so to speak in
economic life.

This way of
depicting economic processes was one peculiarly favoured in
latter times by the theoreticians of economic thought, by
political economists, who would have liked to describe
everything as part of a chain of external cause and effect,
to the exclusion of all intervention from the human will. It
has actually been asserted, for instance, that the important
economic crisis, which took place towards 1907 and during
that year, was one that was bound to follow of necessity, as
a consequence of the boom that preceded it.

It may be
thought perhaps, that a study of processes which cover such a
wide range of economic life as favourable or unfavorable
conjunctures cannot be of so much concern for the private
individual; but this is not the case. And in particular any
person, who wants himself to embark on any sort of
undertaking, must each time pay good heed to the
‘conjunctural aspect’ into which he is launching.

It is of
course only too comprehensible, that the whole
natural-science way of thinking during the last three to four
hundred years should give rise to this belief in an
inevitable chain of cause and effect. As you know, it is the
Marxian school of social thought more especially, whose
devotees indulge in this sort of ideas, and would like to
make such ideas too the basis of social action. In the eyes
of many persons to-day it seems quite foolish to criticise
anything of this kind; for people look upon natural science
and its methods of thought as presenting a downright ideal;
and they look upon it as a great achievement, that this
natural-science method of thought has been extended to the
affairs of practical life as well.

Here it is,
that spiritual science, which, according to the
views represented at all times in this place
[The Branch-House, No. 70 Landhausstr., in Stuttgart;
the first building specially erected and designed for anthroposophical
work; opened by Dr. Steiner in October, 1911.],
is the only science from which a
sound, social way of thinking can proceed ... here it is
that spiritual science must come in and rectify errors; and
it is able to rectify them through its whole essence, which
has nothing whatever in it of that peculiar abstract,
theoretic character assumed by materialist, natural-science
thought in modern times, — which, on the contrary,
educates in a man something which leads him to look plainly
at the actual facts of life, and not to let these facts of
life be mystified with a fog of theories. — I have
pointed out in my "Roots of the Social Question", that it is
just the working classes of the day who are peculiarly prone
to bow down to a world-conception which from first to last is
purely theoretic. The reason of this is simply, that the
working classes of the day, — finding no understanding
of what they were in search of, — took over from the
middle-classes, — who were developing ever more and
more materialistically, — the only world-conception
that these middle-classes stood for: that of
Materialism. And now they believe in this
materialist world-conception as in an infallible gospel, and
simply cannot free themselves from it.

Spiritual
science allows of no bowing down to theories, and
— above all — of no tendency to phantasies of any
sort. For, if one has any latent tendency as a spiritual
scientist to be at all fantastical, then everything one may
see in the spiritual world will become thereby distorted,
— caricatured: one will only get into quite a distorted
world. The first, necessary foundation for spiritual science
is, that it should train its disciples to realities, —
in a certain measure indeed, as I might say, to sober
commonplace. But, once anyone has trained himself in the
spiritual field, firstly to strict, clear logic, and secondly
to the careful consideration of actual facts, then he is in a
position to carry this training on into practical every-day
life as well, and in every way fitted, there too, to let
facts tell their own tale and to allow them their due weight.

What do the
political economists and theorists do, and the other people
who sit at their feet, when they want, for instance, to study
something like the economic crisis of 1907? They first begin
by studying the economic conditions that went before it, in
1906, and come there to a year of favourable conjuncture. And
they then attempt to find in these conditions, that went
before, the origin of the economic collapse, that came after.
If one follows this procedure, one is apt to confuse one's
mind with all sorts of nebulous notions, and becomes in the
end altogether incapable of thinking straight in social
matters. Whereas, if one has trained oneself in the things
such as spiritual science absolutely requires, then one
examines the actual economic facts; and then one discovers
something of this kind, (we might have chosen any other
example), that — as regards the crisis of 1907 —
there was a powerful combine of finance-magnates in America,
who owned 30 banks and over 30 long lines of rail, besides a
number of other things. This powerful combine had, on the
quiet, bought up big quantities of stock in certain
speculative concerns, which were also being traded with on
the European exchanges; so that nearly the whole of this
stock was in the hands of this combine of financial magnates.
They then, through all sorts of business manipulations,
induced a number of European banks, and European undertakings
generally, to buy stock of this kind ‘for future
delivery,’ and succeeded so well at that time as to get
quite a large number of people to buy stock of this kind
‘for future delivery.’ Now let us suppose that a
business undertaking concluded a purchase ‘for future
delivery’ in stock of this kind, in order to sell it
again; and that, at the same time with the European
undertakings, these banks in America concluded purchases
‘for future delivery’ in the same stock. Suppose
then, a European undertaking had bought these stocks, on the
one hand, and, on the other, was pledged to sell them again
at a specified term, — but didn't possess them, because
they had all been bought up again in advance by the
Morgan-Combine; so that they had first to buy them back again
from over there. The business undertakings in Europe were to
a very wide extent under obligations to deliver stock of this
kind; but now, in the meantime, during the period which had
elapsed between the speculative purchase and the term of
delivery, they had succeeded on the American side in screwing
up the value of this stock enormously high; and the
consequence was an extraordinary drain upon the European
money-market; of which the result was this crisis: The
crisis, that is, was created by a purely financial
speculation brought about by a small number of definite
individuals. — Those, who recall it, will remember that
the bank discount at that time rose in England as high as 7
per cent, and in Germany at times as high as 8 per cent; and
a rise in the bank discount is always a barometer for crises.
— This crisis, therefore, was really brought about by
the will of these particular persons; and it is to
facts, such as these, one must look, that is, to
quite specific, concrete facts of actual life, and not to
general theories, if one wants to understand actual life in
its social manifestations. It may be all very clever, it may
seem uncommonly clever and convincing, when Carl Marx, for
instance, takes a particular form of economic life, and
proceeds to deduce from this with a kind of logical necessity
all that people subsequently think. But at bottom
this is all a product merely of ‘the study
table;’ and it is a most characteristic symptom, that
just this purest sample of a ‘study-table’ product, —
Carl Marx's ‘Capital,’ — should have become
so popular a book, and indeed a sort of gospel amongst the
working classes. If one would learn to know life,
however, one must observe life itself. And one will then
find, that spiritual science is the very best training for
this decidedly somewhat troublesome observation of life. It
is on the whole certainly much less trouble to construct
abstract theories, than to consent to examine actual
life.

And now you
will ask: ‘Well, but aren't the things all quite right,
which the theorists produce and the agitators carry out
amongst the people, and which are so plausible? If one only
thinks of the army of figures, of the infallible tables of
statistics, with which these things are usually supported!
Think of the books we have today, showing the course of
social affairs, and especially on the different economic
theories, — why, they are simply swarming with data!
And what can be more obvious, than that, if a person can
support a thing with figures, then his conclusions must be
right!’ — There are however other statistics
also, which, looked at in one way, really seem intended to
represent a certain natural course in human life, — or
at least a course definable by natural science. For instance,
take the insurance statistics, as forming the basis of that
eminently practical branch of life, Insurance. One calculates
out, how many out of a number of persons, who are now 20
years old, will be still living in 30 years time, and how
many will have died. One only needs to take the number large
enough, in order to get very constant figures: Out of so and
so many persons of 20 years old, only so and so many will be
living in 30 years' time. And from this one can then
calculate the amount of insurance, the rate of insurance,
which the person in question will have to pay. And one may
say, that here undoubtedly statistics afford a result with
which one can to a certain extent reckon for the practical
purposes of life. — You know, I daresay, that there is
also a ‘suicide statistics;’ that one need only
take a large enough area and a long enough period of time,
and one can tell, that during this number of years so and so
many people will commit suicide within this area. But would
anybody be right in concluding from the necessity — the
apparent necessity — of a definite number of suicides
occurring every five years within a particular area, that
therefore the people are not free; but that just as a stone
falls of necessity to the ground, so these human beings are
necessarily forced to kill themselves? Most certainly he
would not be right in drawing such a conclusion. The
existence of certain laws does not mean that man's free will
is excluded. There is no question of itl And even it it
should happen, that at 50 years old you came to look round
you, and saw, that with this solitary exception all the rest
were dead, of those who at 20 years old were calculated to
die before 50, yet you certainly will not say: Well, now I
must die too! Statistics are meant for something quite
different; and not to state anything about Man's free will,
— not even suicide statistics! Neither are any economic
laws whatever in a position to state anything about the free
intervention of human initiative in economic affairs. Though
here, certainly, there is something besides, which comes into
question: —

Assume a
condition of things such as had come about towards the year
1907: there was a favourable business conjuncture, which had
lead to certain habits of life amongst a large number of
people. One can tell, that when a number of people have been
in comfortable circumstances for a few years, they will
acquire certain habits of life; and when such habits of life
have become established, those people who care to take
advantage of the situation, — whose interest it is to
take advantage of these habits of life, — can then do
the sort of thing which the Morgan-Combine did in 1907. They
may say to themselves: ‘Now is the time when people are
inclined to do this and that; it is our chance for a
speculation’ It is just the same, for example, as when
certain influences are at work in a country; and people
succumb to these influences, and a certain number commit
suicide. And yet, notwithstanding, these people commit
suicide of their own free will, — insofar as one can
talk of ‘free will’ in ordinary life. (I have discussed the
subject fully in my ‘Philosophy of Freedom’).

The real fact
of the matter is, then, not that there is a certain
constellation in economic life in the first place, and that
what happens after, follows as a consequence of this; but
what happens, follows solely and simply as a consequence of
what people do. And if the people choose to do
something which in a way is ‘calculable,’ what
does this prove? — Well, here one need only look at a
procedure which will be familiar to you all. Suppose, there
is the dog ‘Trusty,’ and you hold out a piece of
meat to him. You can calculate pretty accurately what he will
do: he will snap at it; and the cases will be extremely rare,
in which Dog Trusty does not snap at the piece of
meat. But when a human being in a given situation does
something which is calculable, then it only proves, that the
level of the human soul has sunk; and the more one is able to
calculate, or determine causally, in social life, the more it
indicates that men have sunk towards the level of the animal.
And so all these suicide and other statistics, and
calculations from favourable or unfavourable business
conjunctures, are proofs of nothing except the state of men's
souls; — though then, indeed, one must go on to examine
the general atmospheric conditions under which certain states
of soul are possible; Such a thing as was done by the Morgan
Group in 1907, by which any number of human existences in
Europe were flung into ruin, — such a thing could only
take place in this present age; — such a thing would
not have been possible 150 years earlier.

How has it
come about, that such a thing is possible? It has come about
through the emancipation of the money-market from the
goods-market. This emancipation dates from about the
years 1810 to 1815. It was at this period first, that the
earlier, purely economic conditions controlling
public life, gave place to a control of public life by the
money-market. It was the time when the
bank-system first really became the dominant factor
in economic life. And for economic situations to be created
by transactions solely in the money-market, on the grand
scale that was possible by 1907, was something which only
came about through money having become what I might call an
‘actual abstraction,’ that spreads through our
whole economic life and to all other life as well.

We go back in
thought to the time, when a man was himself involved with the
thing he produced. The money, in those days, was
practically no more than a sort of equivalent for the
specific article produced. People clung to their specific
productions; it was in those days by no means a matter of
indifference, what one produced; one grew
together with one's specific article of output. By
to-day it has already become somewhat fabulous, when one
meets with an incident like the following, which I tell as an
example: It happened that I was staying in Budapest, and
wanted to get my hair cut; and there I discovered a
hair-dresser, who still cut hair really with enthusiasm, and
declared: ‘My aim is not to make money; my aim is a
really handsome cut of hair!’ And he said it in such a
tone, as really to give one the impression of inward truth
and sincerity.

This close
association, between the man and the things he puts out, is
totally disappearing: all that is aimed at now, is to bring
in a sufficient income to satisfy personal needs. And it
comes then to be a question of Capital and Wages, and how
much these will bring in. Just like abstract principles,
which can be extended to cover every sort of thing, so this
abstractified money extends over every conceivable thing. It
is after all — in the minds of many people to-day
— a matter of complete indifference, when the object is
to earn a certain number of shillings a day, it is a matter
of complete indifference, whether one does so by
manufacturing shoes, or by manufacturing text-books. Money is
the actual Real Abstraction, just as general
principles are abstract; and, like them, it can be applied to
every sort of thing. And this abstract money, emancipated
from the real reality of life, has made the kind of
atmosphere possible, in which transactions can then go on
such as went on in 1907; and yet these transactions,
nevertheless, proceed absolutely and entirely from the will
of human beings.

In saying this,
I merely wish to point out, that Spirital Science, from the first,
is directed to grasping realities in their true shape. Materialistic
science  whether it be natural science, or historical 
has become altogether divorced from realities; it has run into
theorisations. Spiritual Science is obliged to go into realities;
and therefore it does not let itself be mystified by theoretical
conceptions. For this very reason, though, it arrives at a real
understanding of actual life, and therefore will be the only science
which is able to help in any way towards building up a new social edifice
in the future.  It has gradually come to be the custom in question
of national economy altogether, to take only things like ‘supply
and demand’ into account, or questions of that kind: conditions
of the market, af trade, of exchanges, and so forth. And what is really
meant by it always is something purely abstract, which figures as
‘returns’. And when one comes to examine the way in
which people to a very large extent think about economic problems to-day,
they really think about these things only so far as to take into account
the factors of returns. And in consequence, the whole of economic
life is left out of account, which has to do with consumption.
Consumption is simply left to proceed, I might say, automatically from
whatever one may get as returns from anything. What one looks at,
in going into any sort of business, is the amount it brings in, not
at the kind of consumption that is connected with the
particular business. One doesn't take into account in the least any special
qualification in the article, insofar as it is an article of consumption;
from the national-economy aspect, one considers it solely
on the side of returns, not on the side of consumption.
People think, that everything is to be found out by studying
the returns side; how conjunctures develope, whether
favourable or unfavourable; how upward or downward tendencies develope
in economic life, and so on. If one altogether neglects however to give
any economic thought to the other,
to the consumption side, the result is that
consumption gradually becomes anarchic; it runs wild; and one
gradually loses all possibility of coping with consumption.

Now
Consumption has a peculiar property. It holds a definite
relation, a sort of causative relation, toward man's
moral nature, towards men's psychic disposition. It
holds an opposite relation as regards man's psychic
disposition, to what Production does. The moral, the psychic
disposition plays a part too in Production; but here the
psychic factor is the causative one. If I produce an article
by means of which I defraud other people, this proceeds from
a moral defect. But the way people live, that is, what
possibilities they have of consumption, — whether they
consume one article or the other, — all this acts as a
cause upon the disposition of their souls, upon their moral
nature; and this factor is the one which is left out of
account in the whole of modern national economy. For this
reason, national economy got completely out of hand. It is
simply impossible for any sane thinking to comprehend, from
the conditions of Production (although there were
some circumstances of Production too as causes), why the
number of strikes went up 87 per cent between the years 1907
and 1919; but one gets a picture of the whole matter,
directly one looks at the conditions of
Consumption.

Now the
various things in economic life have all a certain connection
with each other; a connection which has of course been
considered by the political economists and the business-men;
but the real causes have not been studied by these people,
because their calculations were directed solely to the
paying side. And if one thinks of everything as a
natural science, one comes gradually quite away from all
economic thinking, — in particular as regards
everything that has to do with the consumers. That is why the
modern business-man knows so little, and has so very little
to say, about the connection between strikes and any
particular species of production. He knows — for he is
in the habit of thinking of this — what returns one or
other species of production will yield. He knows, if he was,
for instance, a manufacturer of cri-cris in Paris
(to take an extreme case), that this is an article Which is
likely to have a very favourable run for a year or two. These
cri-cris were quite curious little machines: it was a strip
of steel fitted into a little metal case; and if one put it
in one's pocket and went into the street, and then pressed on
the steel, it made a most excruciating noise, so that the
people in the street got horribly cross at the noise. It was
last century, somewhere in the 'seventies: the streets were
made downright intolerable by these cri-cris. But
the ‘returns’ which the inventor of cri-cris got
from them were enormous: he became a multi-millionaire. But
he didn't in the least take into account the cost on the
consumers' side. For of course, as regards human existence,
the manufacture of cri-cris might quite well have been
dispensed with. And now, just calculate how many people were
employed in these cri-cri factories, who all paid
their costs of consumption out of these returns. The
consumption, that is, of so and so many cri-cri
workers, arose out of unnecessary human labour. These things
have their effect in social life. Unnecessary human labour
has immense significance in social life.

I might take
a different example again. Even Lichtenberg in his day once
said, that 99 per cent more literary works were turned out in
one year than was enough for the happiness of the whole of
mankind. And, as regards the present day, one might venture
to say indeed, that if 99 per cent fewer books were produced
it would probably be very much to the happiness of mankind.
Just think of the batches of lyrical poems (always emanating
of course from unrecognised geniuses!), that are turned out
in editions of 3 to 5 hundred strong, of which not 50 copies
at most are disposed of: how much unnecessary work is
performed there! This unnecessary work might well be saved;
and it would have an uncommonly beneficial effect upon the
general conditions of consumption.

This is to
say, that when one merely reckons with returns, one
can do so without the very least relation to the actual
requirements of life: one may leave these quite out of
account in all one's schemes for the regulation of life. This
is at the back of the great crisis we are going through now;
it is at the back of our present down-slide; and it is a
thing quite beyond the calculation of the people who reckon
in the old economic style, because they make no connection
between unnecessary human labour and human
suffering. Here is the point where Spiritual Science is
able to come in, and to show the great connections; because
Spiritual Science never looks to the one side only, but to
all sides. I don't mean a kind of spiritual science that
soars aloft into abstract, mystical heights, and that sort of
thing, but a spiritual science which is bent on giving men an
education that will make them of use for practical life.
Spiritual Science, rightly applied, is an education for life,
for the actual, full-lived up-building of life; and therefore
the national economy which it founds will be one that knows
the connection between unwillingness to work, unfittedness
for work, and the manufacture of particular kinds of
products.

Such a way of
thinking should lead on in the end to practical undertakings;
and this was really the idea which lay at the bottom of an
undertaking like the "Kommender Tag". It is obviously not
possible to put such an undertaking straight away upon a
sound basis in respect to every concrete detail; but
nevertheless, where an isolated undertaking of this kind is
directed solely by people thoroughly imbued with the kind of
education which comes from Spiritual Science, then all the
practical measures that are taken will of themselves tend
towards people not being burdened with unnecessary work, but
only with necessary work; — it will have to consider
the consumption side of the general economy; and
then the kind of arrangements will naturally grow up, which
can lead on in the end to economic recovery. To someone who
is merely bent upon getting returns, it is a matter
of indifference, what he is producing for and what he is paid
for, so long as he gets his money; money is abstract in
economic life, and for money he can get everything. But what
is needed, is to bring our general economy into a form in
which it shall depend in an honest way upon the
human will, — not depend on it in a dishonest
way. How can it be brought to depend in an honest
way upon the human will? By means of the
Associations. When you have Associations, then all
that takes place in economic life proceeds from the direct
will of the people joined together in these Associations; the
transactions that take place in economic life will then be
transacted between the different Associations; then you will
have transactions between live people, and what is produced
will be the proceeds of this kind of transaction between live
people, one with another, in the Associations. When it is a
question of starting a factory, people will not consider it
merely from the point of view of how much
‘returns’ it will yield under the existing
conjuncture; but they will start from a collective insight
into what is needed. It requires no government
regulations: that would only tie the whole thing up in red
tape — what it requires, is the practical knowledge of
the people actually engaged in the various businesses and the
various branches of business; and this gives the means of
finding out whether a particular business-works is needed. If
it is needed, then one may go on to production, and the
people can make their earnings by it too. It will be done by
way of the Associations; and in this way everything will
become eliminated which might acquire an unhealthy influence.
For then it will not be possible to trade in financial
measures, as was done in the case of the Morgan-Combine;
people will then work to meet economic needs. This results of
itself, when it is a question of men, and not of
money-balances.

It is
curious, how hard many people find it in these days to bring
themselves to look at the realities of life. To look at
realities! That is the most urgent demand of these days! How
does it come about — one might ask — that people
in the present day have wandered so wide of real life? It
comes precisely from the materialism of the day; for
the peculiarity of materialism is, that, at the same time, it
trains people's minds to abstractness. Spiritual Science has
just the opposite peculiarity: it trains people to
concreteness, to actual-mindedness, practicality.

That is what
I wanted to throw into the discussion to-day. A very great
deal, however, will be needed, before habits of thought,
habits of feeling, and the actual practices of feeling, will
become all that is necessary to enable us fully to overcome
the many evils which have thus crept into modern economic
life, and into the whole public life of modern times. This
matter-of-fact thinking can only come as the result
of real penetration into the depths of the spiritual world;
and the new rise will come from the depths of the spirit, not
from mere continuations, in some form or other, of what
people have been used to look upon as ‘the right
thing’ for the last tens, one might say indeed, for the
last half-hundred of years in the nineteenth century. And
anyone in these days, who has not the will to go in quite
radically for a move forward in this direction, for a
change in old habits of mind, a change of thinking, I
could almost say, a change of living, — he will be
able to do nothing to help towards a new rise, he will only
go on helping to hurry us full steam into the downfall. And
then indeed those things will come to pass which people like
Oswald Spengler have given us a picture of, in his book
‘The Decline of the West.’ And then, in actual
fact, the result will be that Western civilisation will pass
over into barbarism. And if one is not willing to have
barbarism, then one must actively will the thing
that can prevent this barbarism; and the only thing that can
prevent it, is a spiritual education of the West;
for nothing but a spiritual education can open men's eyes to
actual reality. We need this eye-opening; — Let us
achieve it, — and then we shall get forwards!

(In the course of the discussion which
followed, a speaker said, that the following argument was
very commonly used in cases like that of the cri-cri
workers: “The cri-cri workers gave rise to
unnecessary consumption; but they would have figured as
consumers too, even if they had produced something
different.” How would Dr. Steiner explain the
difference? — Dr. Steiner replied:)

The question
is one that may quite well be asked. But in asking it, people
have not really quite thought out where the point lies. The
point is, not to look at what is taking place at one
particular spot in life, but to look at what the results are
in the whole context of life. It is quite true that these
cri-cri workers would have figured as consumers too, even if
they had not made cri-cris, that is to say, if they had not
done this unnecessary work. But they would all the same have
done something: they would have done necessary work,
which is a matter of all essential importance for the general
economy; and that is the point. There are a great many
people, who esteem themselves very practical; — they
read the ‘Roots of the Social Question’
[‘Die Kernpunkte,’ published as
The Threefold Commonwealth.],
and think it ‘utopian.’ The real fact of the matter
is, that these people themselves are the unpractical ones and
the ‘Utopians;’ and since these unpractical Utopians
are in the main the people who dominate the whole of life —
which is just what has brought us to the present state of things!
— so it is just these people who have so little
perception for what is in the true sense practically
conceived; and one is always particularly glad, when the
‘practical men’ interest themselves for what is
practical. Only recently, a practical man from the North said
to me that the ‘Roots of the Social Question’
[‘Die Kernpunkte,’ published as
The Threefold Commonwealth.],
takes one to the most important
question of all, the question of prices; that people
are busying their minds at this moment with every conceivable
thing, except the fact, that the price of any commodity is,
strictly speaking, something that must not rise
above a certain level, and mustn't sink
below a certain level. That was a thing which this
practical man could see. And directly one sees that the price
question is one of such importance, that questions of Capital
or Wages really fade into the background, then one has a
sound thinking-basis to go upon. No doubt the cri-cri workers
would have figured as consumers too; but this is not the
connection in which one must consider them; for, what goes to
make up the whole life of the general economy, and is
ultimately connected with the price of any commodity, is very
closely involved with whether necessary work is performed, or
unnecessary. Only people do not think out the matter
consequently; and this consequential thinking must be carried
down into all the details of life.

I had a
discussion once with an acquaintance at table, over picture
post-cards, somewhere in the year 1902–3. I said, I
didn't like writing picture post-cards; in fact I never wrote
picture post-cards; for I couldn't help thinking that, for
every picture post-card, a postman might perhaps have to run
up several flights of stairs — just for the sake of a
picture post-card; and I would gladly save him the labour,
— seeing that picture postcards don't exactly rank
among the necessaries of life. The other man's reply was:
“I know that I give people pleasure by sending them
picture post-cards, and I write a great many: it contributes
to the general pleasure. And if it should happen in some
place or other, that a single postman isn't enough for all
the post-cards, then they will put on an extra one, and that
contributes to the possibilities of livelihood.” But in
saying so, he didn't think the matter out further and
reflect, that when one appoints an extra postman for picture
post-cards, it leads to the production of nothing which is
needful for life; but that when the needful requirements of
life only are produced, the extent of their production means
a certain price. And anyone, then, who performs unnecessary
work, will undoubtedly be a consumer too; but if he is not
employed in delivering unnecessary picture post-cards, he
will no longer be increasing the amount of unnecessary work;
and in consequence he will then do real proper work that
corresponds to requirements; and this will have a very
essential influence upon the whole character of our general
public economy.

As regards
the things of practical life, there are two important points
in question, of which as a rule people only consider the one.
The first is, whether a thing is theoretically
right; and the second is, whether it is in
accordance with the realities. People think it quite
sufficient for an idea to be theoretically right; but it
requires also to be in accordance with the realities. And
until this reality of thinking has gained general
ground, we can not possibly find our way out of the
perplexities of actual life. If somebody thinks therefore,
that the cri-cri workers would figure as consumers in life
too, even though they didn't manufacture cri-cris, he doesn't
reflect, that the number of people who are consumers would of
course not be diminished, but that the character of the
general economy would be changed in respect of necessary or
unnecessary work. And that is the point. One must learn to
look at those points which are necessary and of importance;
this is the thing which we have to acquire in social matters.
And this is what it is hoped to inaugurate through the book,
thenRoots of the Social Question, and the whole movement for
the Threefold Social Order.

(A speaker said: There were other
forms of production, not merely unnecessary, like
cri-cris, but deliberately harmful — like
shell-making. Through such work the workers become
stupified and blunted. Dr. Steiner laid special stress on
the human being for any regeneration of social
life. The speaker would ask: “Can one hope to
found a new economic system at all with the existing
generation?”

Another
speaker asked; How the demands of consumption are to
be regulated? People's wants are very various. Some
want patent-loather boots; others picture post-cards.
Should certain wants be prohibited or prevented? or how
can they be regulated?

Another
speaker said, That amongst the underlying causes of the
crisis of 1907 were the monster ‘lock-outs.’ The
industrialists had already manufactured so much on stock
in advance, that they could not maintain the rate of
output. He was convinced that in a few weeks there would
be another series of crises and collapses. He wanted to
know: what forms these crises would assume?

Another
speaker asked: How could the over-production in
literature be brought by some sensible method into a
normal course, corresponding to real needs?

A written
question asked: “What are the spiritual causes
underlying the divorce of the Money-market from the
Goods-market in 1810-15? How do these same causes
act in other fields, outside the economic one?”

In
conclusion Dr. Steiner replied:)

In the first
place, as to the patent-leather boots, I should like to say,
that here too, things have their connections in life; and it
would soon be found, if once unnecessary forms of production
ceased, that certain wants would disappear too. Of course,
when one talks of ‘regulating consumption,’ one
is in a way again upon a sort of false track. To try and
regulate consumption in any way dictatorially, certainly
won't do. But when all the economic arrangements tend towards
the gradual disappearance of unnecessary work, this, in the
whole context of economic life, will have a certain
consequence: the consequence, namely, that a person who wants
unnecessarily to have patent-leather boots will not be able
to pay for them. And, because one thing is connected with
another, it should be obvious that one must not directly
attack something which will infallibly disappear with
something else. That would make one into a tyrant. The facts
of life are such, that if one wants to respect Freedom, one
simply can't abolish anything over night; but certain things
cease of themselves, through the influence of other
determining conditions. When a kind of economic thinking
gains ground, under which unnecessary work more or less
disappears, then wants of this sort will disappear too:
— amongst other things, the money for them will not be
forthcoming. One can perceive this, solely through a
practical connexion with real life. The conditions of
consumption cannot be regulated by any sort of ordinances,
but only by a progress, so to speak, in the ways of life.

I might say
the same thing too with respect to literature. I can only
point out, ... and here of course it is a question merely of
social conditions; one can quite well have a feeling for
somebody who has lyrical poems he would like to print! ...
but I might point to the example of our Anthroposophical
Press in Berlin. It has never had books that were not sold.
It has not got a great many books, which are in great demand;
but it has never had batches of books which are just stacked
up and don't get sold. It was always carried on on the basis
of what one might call a ‘spiritual want.’ A book
was not printed before knowing that a certain number of
readers were there. The work began by first making people
acquainted with the subject-matter, and so creating the
readers; it was not done by any sort of
‘dictatorship.’ From the economic point of view,
it must be said, that the Anthroposophical Press at any rate
did not lead to the performance of unnecessary work.

It all
depends from which point one starts working in economic life.
If one sets out from returns on production, this of
itself leads on into unnecessary production. If one starts
from understanding of requirements, then a kind of
production gradually springs up in the rear, which is not
continually piling up: the work goes on ahead; and where the
work is of a kind to create requirements, these requirements
find their satisfaction subsequently in the rear. In talking
solely of work for returns, people are harnessing
the cart before the horse as it were. It is a case of looking
at life clearly, and knowing from which end to begin working.
It is not a case of making ‘regulations’ about
anything; but simply of laying hold of actual life in such a
manner that things can take their proper course.

As regards
the present crisis, it is one which is more or less a final
consequence. It cannot be examined by quite the same tests as
other crises; and yet again it must be examined — not
by theories, but by the actual facts. Consider, I beg of you,
what has taken place in these last few years; How much has
been produced by human labour power since 1914, in order that
we might successfully bring it to the point, when from 10 to
12 million men have been shot dead in the course of 5 years,
and three times that number disabled for life! How much
labour-power has been expended upon this; and labour thereby
withdrawn from life, which might have been employed very
differently in life's service! I think one may not unjustly
take the view, that what was there produced in order that men
might be shot dead, was perhaps also unnecessary work, and
work that might have been left undone. If one only thinks,
what a long time was needed for deliberation, as late as
1912, when a million was required for educational purposes;
and how very quickly the money was to hand, when a million
was required for turning into powder! And then take what came
after. Take this quintessence of abstraction; that
money became an abstraction in the course of the
19th century; and now it has reached the perfection of
abstraction: Look and see, how many paper-notes the
stamp-press turns out every day. One can really only find use
for it all, because the usage is artificially provided for!
[Spoken during the time of the great inflation
in Germany.]
And behind it all, is the fact that we are living on the plunder
of what is left over from the years 1911–18. That will come
to an end at some time: Then the crisis will come! The present
crisis has been brought about by men's utter frivolity of mind,
in thinking that one could employ people for years in manufacturing
unnecessary things, and take them away from doing necessary work.

“Whether one can really succeed in building up anything
new with the existing generation?” — I have often
recurred to this question in the paper of the Threefold
Order, and often pointed out, that it Is a sign of
unprofitable thinking to put questions of this kind. What I
set value upon in this connection is the human will,
— not so much the faculty of perceiving the existing
state of things, as of firing the will. And when I
hear that “one can do nothing with the existing
generation,” I still cannot but assume, that those who
pass such a criticism on the existing generation are
nevertheless of the opinion, that with themselves at
any rate something “can be done.” And since I set
more value upon the will than upon the observation, I call
upon all these people: “Come then! and together we will
see what we can do with you!” There would be
quite a large enough number of them already. And so we will
call together all these people who “can do nothing with
the existing generation,” and we will work
together with them.

There is one
more, and a very searching question, which has been put:
“What are the spiritual causes underlying the divorce
of the money-market from the goods-market?” — We
can only find the answer to a question like this, if we are
clearly aware, that statements such as I made to-day must be
taken in their exact sense, and not as being merely
historical remarks, which are relatively exact so far. When
one says, “through the emancipation of money a certain
atmosphere was created,” one must look exactly at what this
atmosphere is. In considering this abstractionising of the
money-market, — where it is a matter of indifference,
what the money stands for, — one must point out
further, that this was necessary for the general progress of
evolution. I have often pointed in this connection to the
strong impulse which exists amongst the civilised peoples
since the middle of the fifteenth century, to detach the
individual from the group-spirit; how democracy has come more
and more to be the general impulse of mankind; how the
individual human being is tending more and more to become a
factor of importance; and those things too are ever more
gaining in importance, which proceed from a man's own soul.
For this whole course of human evolution the abstractionising
of economic life through money was a necessity; and we only
require to recognise, that everything, which comes into
being, will need after a certain time to be put straight,
— or must be supplemented by something else which will
counteract the mischief. For in actual life it is not
possible to find anything which is absolutely good:
everything in life is relative only. One can't say, if my
boots are in holes to-day, that they are unconditionally bad;
only, it is the fate of good boots to wear bad in course of
time. It is inherent in the best system of economic life,
that, when it has fulfilled certain functions, it should show
signs of detriment. And so it is with the money-system too:
it was not detrimental from the first. If one studies the
historical circumstances of the time, in the middle of the
19th century, they very essentially contributed amongst other
things to the rise of democratic conceptions. But then came
the time, when this kind of abstraction reached its proper
limit. I may rightly say ‘abstraction,’ for the function of
money may in every way be compared to the soul's inner
process in abstracting.

Of this we
may see a striking illustration. There exists also a
theosophical movement, — with which this
anthroposophical movement had a sort of external connection
at one time. This theosophical movement is, really, a
materialistic one. It talks indeed of the “higher,
spiritual” parts of Man; but all it really means in
talking of the aether-body for instance, is that it
is something thinner and less substantial than the physical
body; and so with the astral body, that this is
again something still thinner, and so on. That is, they only
apply the materialistic notion. And when they wanted
for once to be unusually brilliant, they said — these
people in the theosophical movement — “Man lives
recurrent lives on earth.” But the materialistic
notions were terribly fast set in their heads; and so there
must now be something, which passed over into the
man's next incarnation. These people had been taught by
natural science, that Man is made up of atoms. The atoms fall
at Man's death into the earth; and now these people had
thought out in their own minds a doctrine of the
Permanent Atom: this one atom didn't fall into the
grave, but passed over beyond death; and round this one
permanent atom all the other atoms could then congregate in
the next life. — Here, under the semblance of a
spiritual movement, we have the crassest materialism. So it
is, when one becomes altogether involved in abstractions:
— so we have abstractions in the soul's life; and so we
have money (when it is an abstract commodity) in economic
life. And since what takes place in economic life is only the
outer side of the spiritual life, there is a very real
connection between the spiritual life and the economic one.
For it is quite a mistaken view to think, that down below
there are only economic processes going on, and that on the
other side there is the spiritual life, which is only
‘ideology.’ The real truth is: that the economic life of a
particular time, and the spiritual life of a particular time
(the times are not quite identical) hold the same relation as
the nut to the nutshell; the economic life is invariably the
shell which the spiritual life has thrown out, and which
takes its cast from the spiritual life. And therefore, since
economic life has become so abstractionised, the spiritual
life too can only be abstract. And so we are in an age of
abstract thinking, of life-remoteness — unreal
conjunctures and such things.

These are
connections which should be carefully considered. And when
one considers them carefully, one is led to a fruitful
conception: to the conception of the threefold order of the
body social, and comes to see, how the three systems of the
whole living organism work one into the other, and combine
together to a unity from the very fact that each is allowed
its own independent basis of development, in the same way as
in the human organism. In the human organism, we distinguish
between: the nerve-and-sense system, the rhythmic
system, and the metabolic, or digestory, system; —
these, functionally considered, make up the whole human being.
The three systems work in co-operation; yet each, for itself,
is relatively independent. And they must be independent.
No good results can come of mixing everything together. Of an
abstract unity, such as the modern state aims at, (such as is
aimed at in particular by the socialist state to-day in the
East), there can be no question; it is a question simply of
learning to know the conditions of life in an individual
organism, and of recognising that they find expression in
this joint threefold system. Anyone who is willing to examine
the matter will see, that the three different systems of life
are in the first place independent, each for itself; and,
again, that they work in cooperation with one another, and
work best in co-operation, when they have first developed
independently, each on its own basis. The unity is then an
outcome from within, instead of being imported from without.
An abstract, lifeless unity bears no fruits, and destroys
itself. The unity which grows up as the final form of
independent parts, becomes a living, life-bearing unity,
something of that kind alone which can really live and
grow.